My regular hobbies are: reading, writing (sometimes poetry, sometimes narrative articles or essays such as for homeschooling magazines, and always writing in my blog) and games- sometimes computer games, sometimes board games. Of course, I can't ever think of the word "hobbies" anymore without thinking of that youtube cartoon that went around a little while back, the one about "mom friends," where one mom said to the other something like: "My children are my hobby. I strive for perfection." That might be sort of true, too. lol.

Oh gosh, I hope they are both okay! :grouphug:

OK so I don't want to jump the gun too much, but of course I'm anxious to know and want to find out as soon as possible whether I got lucky this month lol. So if my last period started on 1/25, and let's just say we've been trying quite hard haha, and if my cycles vary anywhere from being 28 day cycles to being 34 or 35 day cycles (last six months of periods were: 7/17, 8/19, 9/22, 10/23, 11/24, 12/28, 1/25)... (that last one was weird, it came 3 or 4 days earlier than expected when every other one prior to that was 1 to 4 days LATER than the last). ...What would be the earliest date you would go ahead and test this month? Thanks, Nance (who is rapidly approaching age 38 and hoping that in her case it isn't really true that fertility declines after age 35 as she's always thought of herself as pretty fertile in the past :P)

Not sure what interp means either but Mo Willems pigeon books, especially "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus" and Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late" are hysterical. They make my husband and I laugh!

:lol: Make sure you write that down somewhere and save it to look back on some day. I've got a whole wordpad file of gems like that, which I've been keeping since my now 10 y/o was 3, and since my 5 y/o was old enough to talk.

I've been known to say things like: "Ah, I'll pass, that isn't really my thing." Or "I'll have to skip that this time around, I don't really have the money for it right now."

We're currently doing Oak Meadow's Environmental Science for 5th grade. We'll be using Oak Meadow's Basic Life Science for 6th grade. We'll be using Oak Meadow's Earth Science for 7th grade. We'll be using Oak Meadow's Physical Science for 8th grade. And for high school we'll still be using Oak Meadow- not sure yet of sequence but it will include their Biology, Environmental Science, Chemistry and Physics.

Well, yes and no. We do science experiments for school sometimes, and so they consider them school...but they also consider them fun and it's one of their favorite parts OF school. And if we had science experiment kits and whatnot that weren't part of our curriculum but just there to do on the side for fun, they'd be perfectly happy with that, too.

Here in PA, we only have to test in language arts and math according to the PA Home Ed Law. So even if I buy a test that includes social studies or science, we can choose to skip those portions (or can take them if we are curious and not submit those particular results to the district). With that said, the CAT from Seton was just language arts and math and only costs $25.00.

We make a very simple recipe that just involves Hawaiian Punch, Sprite, Rainbow Sherbet, and sometimes a bag of frozen fruit. (Of course, our recipe also includes alcohol but you can leave that out lol).

Don't feel guilty. You didn't expect this or plan for it, it's changing some major plans you've had, and your hormones are probably going crazy right now anyway... so go ahead and accept your feelings... ...and know that they will pass, that you'll come to love this baby as much as you do your others, and there will come a point when you couldn't imagine your life any other way. And it will NEVER be too late to follow through with your plans, even if it's on hold at the moment. :grouphug:

My daughters were 14 and 5 when my son was born. It was an adjustment at first because he was SUCH a demanding baby and there was a while there where things were rough, I'm not gonna lie! I was exhausted, my 5 y/o was making wistful comments like "you used to let me sit on your lap" and my special needs teen was chiming in with "yeah and you used to play with us more." But that time was fleeting in the grand scheme of things. He eventually became less clingy and demanding. I eventually became less tired. The girls got used to the new family dynamic, and now of course none of us can imagine things any other way. They are now 19, 10 and 5- and we are working on trying to add one more to the family :) (and I'm almost 38 too)! If it's another demanding baby there might be yet another tough adjustment period, but I know that's temporary. And who knows, it could always be an incredibly easygoing baby like my girls both were, which would help lol. I will say there's a lot to be said for having kids spaced out so the olders are old enough to help out or at least entertain themselves as needed! Congrats on your pregnancy and don't stress too much. Everything falls into place and works itself out :)

Saxon made my eyes bleed just looking at it. We love TT over here. If you click on my blog (in sig) then look under the Reviews section on the sidebar to the left, I've got a detailed TT review up.

:iagree: too lol. (At least I can take SOME comfort in the fact that I'm leaving PA in 5 days to drive down to Florida for a couple of weeks!)

I don't know if this is anything like what you're looking for, but we followed a simple homemade vanilla cupcake recipe last month with a simple homemade lemon frosting recipe and then topped the cupcakes with marshmallow snowmen for a winter theme decoration, and they were cute AND delicious AND simple! Here's a link to my entry where I post pics and the recipe: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/173018.html

Hm. Well, we don't have a landline. I would say the latest anyone ever calls ME on MY cell phone is 10 PM, and that's only occasionally (and I don't really like it, I'd prefer to not get calls past 9:30 PM). My husband on the other hand is a very late night owl and his friends know it. So they would call him much later than anyone would ever call me. I personally wouldn't call anybody much after 8:30. If it was like 8:45 I'd feel uncomfortable calling someone unless it was important.

:iagree: Just to throw it out there, I'm coming at this from the other side, where my daughter WAS in public school for K through most of 3rd grade before I pulled her out to start homeschooling. I was still home with my younger son, who was a baby when she started K. Being home all day with a baby (who then became a toddler and then a preschooler) wasn't what I'd call "relaxing"- in fact, it was easier on the days the older ones were home to help entertain and occupy him some :D And as for a happier mommy at the end of the day just because my olders were in school- that wasn't the case with me. I was tired from being with a baby/toddler all day, and then when my daughter came home from school, I had to play enforcer for the school, making her do an hour or more worth of homework that she didn't want to do at the end of a long day, and from there it was dinner time, and everything had to revolve around "it's a school night" and doing an earlier chores and bedtime routine and catching up on whatever had to be done for school and so on. And of course, my daughter wanted a little time to herself, which was soooo limited. And family time? What was that? At the end of a long day everyone was just cranky, and revolving everything around the school's schedule was stressful, and it seemed like nobody had time for themselves, and the family time we had wasn't what I would call peaceful or relaxing or even particularly enjoyable. It was a constant: "Not now, do your homework! Do your chores! Not now, I have to make dinner. Eat your dinner! Fine, play for a little while, but you need to shower and be ready for school tomorrow. You have to start getting ready for bed, it's a school night! Go to sleep, it's a school night! Get up, you have to get the bus. I know you're tired, get up anyway. Okay, bye." And then she'd be gone for hours, stuck at a desk all day being taught what was on the test and nothing else. And then she'd come home and we'd start all over with "Not now, do your homework!" and so on. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Every once in a while throw in studying for a test, buying supplies, signing notes, filling in forms, parent teacher conferences, fundraisers, having to get "permission" to take a vacation, having to prove she was sick with a doctor's note, getting some form letter in the mail about how lice or MRSA was going around, and so on and so forth. Blah!!! Once I pulled my daughter out of public school toward the end of third grade, everything became SO much more relaxing and peaceful for me. We began to enjoy each other more, and didn't feel like we were constantly jumping through hoops to meet someone else's schedule and so on. I would definitely say it's been less stressful instead of more. That's been a constant in the just shy of two years I've now been homeschooling. Maybe things will be different for you guys. Either way, I hope it works out how you want it to. But if you decide public school just isn't for you, then I hope you take some of the advice here and just relax more with your homeschooling. Maybe you're spending too many hours a day on schoolwork or something. Maybe you can go with a more relaxed approach (which has worked great for me!), even unschool for a while, learn to just have FUN together and enjoy each other again. :grouphug:

It really varies. It could be 9 one day, 11 the next, 10 the next, not til after lunch the next day, and then we might sneak an 8:30 start in there. It depends how we're feeling, what's going on that day etc. We kind of go with the flow.

No. I wouldn't make her continue. I think it's great that she wanted to try something new. She tried it. She decided for whatever reason it wasn't for her, or that she just wasn't ready for it, why can't she make that decision? Forcing her to continue might make her decide she likes it, sure. Or it might make her still hate it and be more wary about trying new things next time. There are some things kids should be allowed to be independent with and make their own decisions regarding, and what they do in their extracurricular activities, which are supposed to be for fun, and which are supposed to be for THEM not for mom and dad, should be one of them, IMHO. I say give her the choice. Let her learn to make those choices by not always making them for her. Maybe down the road she'll change her mind and give it another chance. Maybe she'll find something else she loves. Give her the room to explore and the respect to make the choices.

My son doesn't have a huge attention span for reading and it's often hard to catch his interest. With that said, at 5, he sat for: The Indian In The Cupboard (mostly paying attention) The Magic Finger (Roald Dahl- he LOVED this one) and he's starting to be sort of interested in some of the Magic Tree House books.

Mine had eczema that persisted up until this year (she's 10) but no other allergies, food or environmental, that we know of. And we FINALLY just this year figured out how to get the eczema totally under control and keep it that way...thank goodness because it had gotten really bad! These days though her skin has been doing fantastic, and I'm SO happy about it. Here's a link to my site describing the steps we took. Most of them could be used even with an infant! http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/160161.html

My son's only 5 so this isn't an issue yet. My husband, on the other hand, still plays with toys. :D

Not routinely but I have sometimes in the past, especially when we used to share an email address.

I'm so sorry. I hope that you DO get good news after all, you never know! But if you don't, I hope that you conceive again quickly and have a wonderful pregnancy resulting in a baby that you are meant to have. I had an empty sac, or "blighted ovum," just before getting pregnant with my now 10 y/o. Nothing ever developed in the sac and I did have to have a D&C. It is very disappointing and sad of course, although for me it was not as 'sad' as if a baby HAD developed and then miscarried. And as soon as I was given the go ahead to try again, I did, and was able to conceive again very quickly, and went on to have a wonderful pregnancy and a beautiful, healthy baby who is now 10 years old and who I couldn't imagine life without. :grouphug:

1.) Why have you chosen homeschooling? Multiple reasons. I felt the school put a negative spin on the earliest years, therefore setting kids up for a negative view of education (my daughter was missing recesses, getting "demerits" and getting an "F" in math by K and 1st grade, and the F was NOT because she didn't know the work- it was because of incomplete assignments due to either being sick or on vacation that the teacher wouldn't let her make up at home and didn't have time at school, and due to asking the kids to draw pictures to demonstrate their answers- my daughter liked to draw elaborate detailed pictures and would run out of time to do the work. I felt they didn't have enough time to be kids- even in K it was deskwork for hours, silent lunches, 10-15 minute recesses, homework. I felt that they focused too much on standardized testing and not enough on other things. (Which also caused stress for the kids- mine was having stomach aches every day in third grade which was the first big testing year, although they had started "prepping" for the test as early as Kindergarten!) And lastly I just kind of felt like my kid's childhood was slipping away so quickly and I was missing so much of it. And so was she! So I finally had enough and pulled her out toward the end of third grade and have been very happily homeschooling without looking back ever since. 2.) What is your perception of the public school systems? Same as above. They don't give kids enough time to be kids. They focus too much on standardized testing rather than a well rounded education. And this isn't working for many of them, and certainly isn't working for my district going by the results of said standardized testing that come out in the papers each year- my district is below state average nearly across the board. 3.) What do you think your child gains by being educated at home? She gets more time to be a kid, follow her own interest, etc. She gets more exercise, more time to play, more time to be outside, more time to be with her family. She gets more of a customized education, where we can do things in a more well rounded way and move at our own speed and take our time more with things we enjoy. She gets to experience more of "real life" instead of just being shut away in a classroom for years "preparing" for life, so I think learning is less "abstract" for her. She gets to be more independent and she gets to do many more hands on things. She gets to do lots more "field trips" and outings. And she gets to live life with much less peer pressure, bullying, and so on. Oh and she gets sick less often, too :) 4.) Is there anything that you think your child is missing out on by not being in public school? No. Seriously, no. I feel she gets a better education at home. And if you take the education aspect away from school, what's left? Socialization? There WAS no "socialization" really in school. From Kindergarten she lost her meager 10 to 15 minutes of recess almost all.the.time. as a punishment for "talking too much" in the classroom. They had "silent lunches." And what would the "socialization" have been like now in middle school? I shudder to think about it. She gets PLENTY of socialization now- more so than she would have in school, I think. She can talk to her family when she wants to. She accompanies me on most of my errands and outings. We go on frequent field trips. We are active in our homeschool meetup group. She is involved in multiple extra curricular activities (currently Girl Scouts, Judo and Homeschool Bowling League weekly, with library book club every few weeks and homeschool P.E. at the Y once a month). She has cousins and friends on our street who she plays with often after THEIR school hours. What else might there be? An argument that she should be able to learn from different people instead of just mom? Well, she does. She's had gymnastics instructors, swimming instructors, her sensei at Judo, the librarian at book club, the homeschool P.E. teacher, art teachers at her summer art camps, Girl Scout leaders, 4H leaders when she did 4H, and so on and so forth. 5.) What do you enjoy most about homeschooling? I enjoy learning or re-learning in some cases, alongside my daughter. I enjoy that we spend so much time reading together, I enjoy the many hands on projects and activities we try to do, I enjoy the many field trips we go on, being able to go on vacations and outings on days and at times when it's not ridiculously crowded, I enjoy having my kids with me throughout the day as opposed to only at the end of the day when we're all tired and not at our best- there are so many things. I couldn't pick just one! But if I had to, it would be I feel like my daughter has more of a childhood now. She gets to experience more of it, and so do I. 6.) What have you found to be challenging? To be honest...I wouldn't say there's been anything all that challenging as of yet. (I've only homeschooled for a couple of months at the end of third grade, all of fourth grade, and now we're more than halfway through fifth grade). If I had to pick one thing, it would be occupying my younger son who wasn't yet schoolage while focusing more on my daughter who was, which did sometimes make me feel a little bit guilty (that I wasn't paying enough attention to him). 7.) Is homeschooling expensive? It's as expensive as you make it. Some people spend a LOT of money on curricula. Others buy cheap, used, and put together a lot of stuff on their own. I think I have NOT spent a lot on curricula compared to many. But I spend a good amount on things like field trips and activities and camps and classes and lessons for the kids.